FEEDING YOUR PASSIONS WITH PODCASTS AND MORE

Genis-Vell (The Next Captain Marvel)

Genis-Vell

(The Next Captain Marvel)

by Phil Perich for the Nuff Said Universe

With hints of rumors about a favorite character of mine from the 1990’s and 2000’s maybe appearing in Guardians of the Galaxy 2, I thought I would once again write about another Marvel character I loved to read and was sad to never see again.

Genis-Vell, or Legacy as he was known in his early appearances, first appeared in Silver Surfer Annual #6 (1993).

in this issue, it was revealed that Legacy was the son of the original Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell) and Elysius of Titan even though he was born years after Mar-Vell’s death. Elysius used the advanced technology of her race to impregnate herself with some of Mar-Vell’s DNA so that something of the legendary Kree warrior would live on. Due to artificially implanted memories, he originally thought his father was the alien hero Starfox, but he later discovered the truth about his real father. Legacy would get his own series, titled Captain Marvel, in December 1995. The series that featured Legacy’s journey to discover more about his father and how to be a hero lasted only six issues.

Years later in the Avengers Forever miniseries, the superhero sidekick Rick Jones, who had been bonded with the original Captain Marvel, meets a future version of Legacy, now using his father’s codename of Captain Marvel. The end of the story sees a temporal anomaly bond Rick to the present day Legacy, triggering Legacy’s latent cosmic awareness, which he is unable to turn off for awhile like his father was able to.

Genis’s next Captain Marvel series premiered in March 1999, featuring his journey to become the new Captain Marvel while dealing with life bonded to Rick Jones. While Rick and Mar-Vell would swap physical space between Earth and the Negative Zone, With Genis the swap was between Earth and the Microverse. Also making life difficult for both of them was the fact that they always saw the other guy in reflective surfaces and were always aware what the other was doing, which made romantic moments with Rick’s wife Marlo awkward to say the least.

This series ended at issue #35 in October 2002. In an attempt to boost sales on some books, Marvel started the U-Decide campaign and as a result Genis got a new Captain Marvel series staring with a new #1. After his cosmic awareness drives him insane, Genis strands Rick in the Microverse, gets a new uniform from a Kree soldier he kills, and destroys the universe at the suggestion of cosmic beings Entropy and Epiphany.

Genis recreates the universe with several different changes, such as he now as an adult sister, Phyla-Vell. No one else remembers his destruction of the universe or that anything had changed. Genis later travels to the future where he meets his son who has not been born yet in the present. His son plans to trigger a universal extinction event. Genis defeats him by deciding that he will kill his son as an infant after he is born. This causes his son to vanish into nothingness. This Captain Marvel series ended with issue #25 in 2004. The last issue sees writer Peter David wrap up all loose story threads, such as reuniting Rick Jones with his wife Marlo, and separating Genis and Rick so they no longer have to share physical space.

Genis would next appear in issue #82 of the Thunderbolts series (May 2005). At this point, Genis has absorbed his nega-bands, which give him his powers of flight, energy manipulation, and strength enhancement into his body. After he is injured, the Thunderbolts leader Baron Zemo heals him with the alien moonstones. Genis then takes on another new costume and name, this time using the codename Photon. Zemo later realizes that using the moonstones on Genis has created a link between Genis and the universethat threatens to end it. Genis attempts in vain to use his cosmic awareness to find a solution. In Thunderbolts #100, Zemo battles Genis in a fight to the death to save the universe. Zemo traps Genis in a moment in time. He then uses a combination of the Darkforce powers and the moonstones to separate Genis into individual pieces, trapping them in separate, far-off parts of the Darkforce Dimension so that they cannot be reunited.

So was the end of Genis-Vell. Will he show up in Guardians of the Galaxy 2? Who will he be since we are getting Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel in her own movie? Share your thoughts with me!

You can hear me and Charlie Esser discuss new Marvel comics and anything else Marvel every week on our All New Marvel Roundup and Superconnectivity podcasts, both part of the Nuff Said Universe, part of the Southgate Media Group.

I also write two other blogs, The BatFan Cave and Flash/Arrow blog. All my podcasts, blogs, and those of others can be found at www.southgatemediagroup.com